A tender age
Subtitle: cultural anxieties over the child in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries
By: William F. Maclehose.
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2008
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 247
ISBN-13: 9780231142564; 9780231503709
Subjects: Children -- Europe -- History -- 12th century; Children -- Europe -- History -- 13th century; Social history -- Medieval, 500-1500; Europe -- History -- 476-1492
Description: "Beginning in the early thirteenth century, the burial of a child became an event of dramatic consequence. Child death took on a symbolic power, with great concern expressed over the fate of the body. William F. MacLehose follows the evolution of this social anxiety during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, an anxiety focused on images of children's vulnerability and susceptibility to external threats." "Employing a wide range of sources, including historical chronicles, medical writings, Marian legends, hagiography, and popular theological texts, MacLehose advances four important discussions of childhood that directly link fragility with other sources of cultural anxiety: medical writers who began to articulate an increasingly paradoxical view of women's bodily fluids - milk and menstrual blood - as simultaneously essential and potentially fatal to the survival of the fetus and the newborn: doctrinal debates on the fate of children who died before baptism; accusations against Jews, who were charged with the ritual murder of Christian children; and the so-called Children's Crusade of 1212, which was justified on the basis that corruption was an inevitable part of a child's growth."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.
Table of contents: title: Introduction; title: Nurturing danger; title: Suffer little children; title: Simplicity and faith; title: "The path of the foolish children"; title: Conclusion; title: Bibliography.